Leo Tolstoy

Often called the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is at once a historical war epic, a philosophical study, and a celebration of the Russian spirit. Noted for its mastery of realistic detail and psychological analysis, War and Peace follows the metamorphosis of five aristocratic...

"The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity." Tolstoy’s War and Peace, written in serial format and published between 1865 and 1869, is widely regarded as a masterwork of Russian literature and one of the world’s greatest novels. This epic novel intricately weaves together the lives of...

The novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy was published in 1886 and is considered a masterpiece of his late-period fiction. It tells the story of a high-court judge in 19th-century Russia. He lives a simple, carefree life with his family until he is diagnosed with a terminal illness...

One of the world’s greatest novelists, Leo Tolstoy was also the author of a number of superb short stories, one of his best-known being “The Kreutzer Sonata.” This macabre story involves the murder of a wife by her husband. It is a penetrating study of jealousy as well as a piercing...

Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to...

"All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow." Widely considered to be one of Tolstoy’s finest works, Anna Karenina is both a tragic love story and an exploration of the complexities of love, infidelity, and societal expectations in 19th-century Russia...

Tolstoy's story of one woman's fate is brought powerfully to life in this BBC Radio full-cast dramatisation starring Teresa Gallagher and Toby Stephens. Anna Karenina enjoys a privileged and aristrocratic lifestyle as the wife of influential government official Alexy Karenin. Yet their ten-year...

“The Cossacks live not by the dictates of the world but by a code woven from their own history and way of life.” Published in 1883 and set in the Caucasus, The Cossacks follows the journey of Dmitry Andreich Olenin, a young nobleman who, disillusioned with his privileged life and a failed...

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." This is the famous opening sentence of Tolstoi's epic love story between Anna Arkadyevna Karenina and her Count Vronsky. Anna Karenina (1877) by Leo Tolstoy is a classic story of love and tragedy against the backdrop...

The Devil is a novella by Leo Tolstoy, was published in 1911, after the writer’s death. It tells the story of a married landowner slowly overcome with unrelenting sexual desire for one of the peasants on his estate. Before his marriage, he had many sexual relationships with women while living...

“There is one thing, and only one thing, in which it is granted to you to be free in life… that is to recognise and profess the truth.” The culmination of a lifetime of philosophical thought and consideration, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1893) is a powerful treatise on faith...

A beloved classic of world literature, War and Peace centers on Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 and studies the years around it through the lens of multiple wealthy families.

A Classic Pair: A Tale of Two Cities & War and Peace brings together two unforgettable pieces of historical fiction – by turns beautiful and devastating – from nineteenth-century literary giants, Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy.

“Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.” This essay, first published in English in 1898, challenges the notion that art’s value lies solely in beauty or technical skill. Tolstoy redefines art as a moral and emotional force, and argues that...

In early nineteenth-century Russia, the threat of Napoleon’s invasion looms, and the lives of millions are about to be changed forever. This includes Pierre Bezúkhov, illegitimate son of an aristocrat; Andrew Bolkónski, ambitious military scion; and Natásha Rostóva, compassionate daughter...

Beautiful, popular, and fortunate, Anna Karenina is an upright wife and mother. But her passionless marriage to a senior statesman leads her into the arms of Count Alexey Vronsky. The dashing cavalry officer stokes in her something exciting and defiant. In abandoning the rules of her noble...

Olenin is an aimless young nobleman who is disenchanted with city life. Taking a post as a Cadet in the army, he finds himself assigned to the remote Cossack outpost in the Caucasus. It is here, among the Tatars, the Chechens, and the Old Believers, that he will fall in love with a beautiful...

What Is Art? is the result of fifteen years’ reflection on the nature and purpose of art. Tolstoy claims that all good art is related to the authentic life of the broader community and that the aesthetic value of a work of art is not independent of its moral content. The book is noteworthy not...

Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, Leo Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day, death announces...

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